Our Holocaust Torah

The Brothers of Israel Holocaust Torah was written in 1870 in the small town of Vlasim, Czechoslovakia. One hundred and seventy five families belonged to the Vlasim synagogue, a town about 50 kilometers from Prague. The town was prosperous and progressive, with a combined repertory company of opera and ballet. When the Germans took over the Sudentenland in 1938, the citizens of the German speaking regions had only two or three days to flee to the interior.

By 1940 the synagogues were closed down and in 1942 the Nazis decided to gather all the private and public Jewish property in Prague. Collections, including Torah Scrolls, were gathered and sorted in more than 40 warehouses, some of them Prague synagogues. Just a few years after World War II ended, Communists took over the country and the Prague Jewish Museum, opened in 1906, fell under their control.

In the early sixties an American art dealer from London was approached by the Czech authorities to see if he wanted to purchase the scrolls. He contacted a wealthy philanthropist who ended up purchasing 1564 of the Scrolls and shipping them to Westminster Synagogue, where they were sorted, cataloged and repaired. In February 1964 they began distributing the scrolls to synagogues all over the world, including Brothers of Israel.